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Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Kent Hovind and the Dinosaur/Lizard Confusion

There is one particular Creationist by the name of Kent Hovind, I've mentioned him before but this is about one of his key arguments. Before he was imprisoned for tax fraud he used to go all around the U.S. lying to children about science and making videos. One of his lies that he used to spread quite maliciously was his idea that dinosaurs were simply giant lizards that lived in the garden of Eden with Adam and Steve. There are so many things wrong with this idea that it's hard to know where to start.....

Dinosaurs are NOT lizards at all, let alone giant lizards. Yes, They both lay eggs. Yes they are both types of reptile. However, they are not synonymous. Here is an image showing the key difference between the two. Lizards have legs that are 'Sprawling' whereas dinosaurs stand erect. If you're interested in reading more about what actually makes a dinosaur a dinosaur you can read the well-sourced wikipedia article here.

The other idea of his that ties into this whole shenanigan is that they lived in the garden of Eden 6000 years ago. I've already written about this before so if you've read that post you should know how absolutely ridiculous this notion is. Something that I haven't mentioned before is the reason he gives for why the "lizards" grew so large and why people lived for so long. He believes that there was a water canopy in the sky that filtered harmful radiation from the sun out, allowing people to live for 900 years and causing lizards to grow excessively large. Not only is this idea completely unscientific but his reason for having this belief is laughable. The genesis account mentions a firmament in the sky. From this one mention of a firmament he derives this belief that he goes around deceiving children with.

A bit of a disorganised post but hopefully there was something worth reading in there.

6 comments:

Once you have finished your music degree (if not already), then why don't you do a degree in the field of biology and become a researcher? It seems clear the area of evolutionary biology interests you. The scientific world (and hence the human race) needs inquisitive minds like yours to move forward. It would be great to see you contribute new ideas to the field of science rather than just learning the concepts for the sake of an argument.